"Gnome 3 has received a lot of disapproval of late, from the Gnome foundation being charged with not taking care of its users, or losing mindshare, to Gnome 3 itself being an unusable mess. I've been using Gnome 3 myself for a few months to sort the truth from the fiction, and to try and understand just how the Gnome foundation expects their newest shell to be used. I will end with some thoughts on how Gnome 3 can be improved. The review will require a fairly lengthy preface, however."

You mean like how Mac OS 10 is actually Mac OS 9 with prettier Window borders? I thought it was a huge difference. Don't recall seeing the dock and the Aqua interface in OS 9. People did not seem to mind the differences either.

Yeah, they should have called Gnome 3 the Garden Gnome XL Extremist Edition. That way people will get it that it is different and yet it is a product of the GNOME Foundation?

So yes, for the user "Mac OS 10 is actually Mac OS 9 with prettier Window borders" (btw, Aqua is primarly a GUI theme). Yes, there is a huge difference between OSX and OS9, the Kernel, base systems, APIs and a more modern look, but a OS9 user felt at home right away in OSX, all the GUI elements were rather similar.

Now, as an exercice, try to count how many things are similar between Gnome 2 and 3.